‘Draft Our Daughters’ Legislation Is A Trojan Horse For Big Govt.

Members of the Senate Armed Services Committee (SASC), meeting behind closed doors, recently pulled “Draft Our Daughters” out of the legislative dustbin.  

SASC Chairman Jack Reed, D-R.I., “sweetened” this year’s version with a trade-off deal purporting to exempt female draftees from being “compelled to join combat roles that were closed to women prior to December 3, 2015.”

The defense bill would automatically register all persons of draft age (18-26) who are subject to Selective Service law, extending government power into the lives of every young person in America while weakening military readiness.  

The “combat carve-out” ploy was a false promise that should have fooled no one, but the measure passed on a 16-9 bipartisan vote.

Why a Combat Carve-Out for Women Is Not Credible

If the Senate wanted to exempt women from direct ground combat, they should have done so across the board, instead of approving a ruse involving Selective Service registration.

Direct ground combat units, such as the infantry, armor, and special operations, attack the enemy with deliberate offensive action. The “Draft Our Daughters” legislation mentions the 2015 date when then-Defense Secretary Ashton Carter denied Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford’s formal request that these specialties and units remain all-male. 

The former commandant backed his request with three years of scientific research. According to a summary of field tests, fighting teams composed of average-ability men outperformed mixed-sex units with highly qualified women in 69 percent of evaluated tasks, including hiking under load and typical combat maneuvers.

The research also confirmed significant differences in the physical strength, speed, and endurance of male and female Marines performing heavy-duty close combat tasks. Carter ignored these inconvenient facts, assigning priority to “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) goals.

Pentagon leaders promised that “gender neutral” standards would be identical for men and women in the combat arms. Reality intruded when initial Army Combat Fitness Test (ACFT) trials reported an 84 percent failure rate among female trainees, compared to 30 percent among the men.

Adjustments in test requirements improved women’s scores, but the Army has abandoned sex-neutrality as its goal. A 2022 RAND report showed that only 52 percent of the women could pass the test, compared to 92 percent of the men, but Army policies still pretend that men and women are interchangeable in all ground combat specialties.   

Pentagon leaders who cannot define what a woman is cannot be trusted to define what “combat” is. The purpose of a military draft is to rapidly supply combat replacements in a war that threatens the very existence of the United States. It is oxymoronic to suggest that women must register for a possible future draft while excusing them from close combat.

The defense bill combat carve-out gimmick changes nothing. Women drafted in a time of national emergency would have to serve where they are ordered to go — just like the men.

The Purpose of Selective Service Registration

Anyone who thinks that a reinstated draft would solve the military’s recruiting crisis should reconsider. Government coercion would increase public resistance, and critical race theory (CRT) instructions in schools are undermining patriotism, which is essential for recruitment in the All-Volunteer Force.

Nor would a draft deter endless wars. President Lyndon B. Johnson shipped thousands of draftees to fight oversees in Vietnam. 

The Heritage Foundation has made a good case for abolishing the system, but right now Selective Service is a low-cost insurance policy ($26 million per year) to back up the All-Volunteer Force. It does not exist to advance “sex equity” for less than compelling reasons.

Under “Draft Our Daughters,” any future Selective Service call-up would be governed by “equity” mandates. Drafting equal numbers of men and women just to find the one woman in four who might meet physical requirements would increase administrative demands and jam the system at the worst possible time.

Data and common sense suggest that sex-mixed conscripts would be weaker, slower, more vulnerable to debilitating injuries, less ready for speedy deployments, and less accurate with offensive weapons during combat operations.

So why would any senator vote for the women’s “combat exemption” sham? Either they don’t understand the purpose of the draft, or they are pursuing an incremental “national service” agenda. A law requiring “all persons” to register advances the intent to change the purpose of Selective Service in incremental steps.

Consider the 2020 report of the National Commission on Military, National, and Public Service. The commission recommended Selective Service registration of women for the lamest of reasons: “The time is right.” It also promoted a powerful interagency Council on Military, National and Public Service, which would grant millions of dollars to organizations coordinating national service mandates.

Lumping together military conscription and mandatory national service seductively suggests that young people could avoid the former by accepting the latter.

Once Americans become accustomed to automatic registration, a very expensive, controlling Big Government bureaucracy would use “carrots and sticks” to commandeer the lives of young “national servants” for politically correct reasons of the government’s choice.

Question: Where in the U.S. Constitution is there authorization for the federal government to run the lives of young people for less than compelling reasons?

The Supreme Court has upheld the constitutionality of military conscription because the Constitution authorizes Congress to raise armies. However, Congress is not empowered to conscript anyone for the Peace Corps, AmeriCorps, or the National Commission-recommended “Public Service Corps.”

Congress should not replace Americans’ presumption of freedom with a presumption of service, tracked in a Big Government system smacking of “social credits.”

‘Draft Our Daughters’ Is An Affront to Women, Who Are Opposed

Military women don’t want to be forced into the combat arms on an involuntary basis, and a recent Rasmussen national survey found that 58 percent of female respondents were “somewhat” or “strongly opposed” to drafting women (22 percent and 36 percent, respectively).

Capable, brave women have always volunteered to serve in times of national emergency, and it is an affront to suggest they would not do so again.

Nevertheless, the defense bill’s backdoor “Draft Our Daughters” scheme could be approved during closed-door negotiations or rammed through during the post-election lame-duck session, even if Republicans win.  

Consequential legislation such as this should be publicly debated, not dropped behind closed doors like an explosive device wrapped in camouflage. “Draft Our Daughters” legislation is unacceptable, and it has no place in law.

Elaine Donnelly is president of the Center for Military Readiness, an independent public policy organization that reports on and analyzes military and social issues.